A Look Inside the Press Box Amidst the loud cheers and hectic atmosphere of the office, Drake Anderson, the sports director at the Sports Addict Radio Network in Blacksburg, took a break from the March Madness schedule to sit down for an interview.
The questions that follow were selected from a 20 minute interview. Q: What brought you from Roanoke to the New River Valley? Anderson: I was in radio in Roanoke and just had the opportunity to come up here to be full time. I was doing a part time down in Roanoke and had the chance to come up here and that’s what brought me up here in 2000. Q: Were you in sports radio in Roanoke? Anderson: It was a news station, but I had done a weekly sports show. I had done it on Sundays for about, I think it was a year and a half to two years. When I came up here I was doing some play-by-play. We weren’t all sports, so when we switched over, it was natural to do it. Q: Can you explain a typical day at work? Anderson: Well, you just saw people running in and out - that’s typical. I do more than just doing the on-air stuff. I am program director. I have to keep up with the Emergency Alert System test, all the Federal Communications Commission regulations. Usually, in the morning, there’s probably three hours of working on stuff that’s not even sports related, just trying to get promos, everything pointed in the right direction. Then, usually, in the afternoon, it’s trying to get ready for the afternoon show. Four o’clock to 6 o‘clock is on the air and then I take about 30 minutes to wind down and hopefully, I can go home. If not, I’m running out to some game or getting ready to run a game. Q: Do you spend a lot of time preparing for the on-air show? Anderson: Well, I’d say it’s at least two hours, at least, but I mean that could be just here, or maybe at home watching games at night. Usually, I’ll sit in here and I’ll have SportsCenter on and I may glance at that now and then. It’s a little bit more of that. There’s a lot of time. I may have something ready to go at 2:00 p.m. and another story may break and everything’s thrown out of wack. Q: Is the Press Box the only on-air show that you do? Anderson: Well, that’s the only one that I’m on all the time. We do “Countdown to Kick Off” during the Virginia Tech football season, which is basically, we did a two hour pregame show three hours before the game started. We’ve done that the last two years. I may pop on some other shows every now and then, but that’s about it. Q: Were you a communication major? Anderson: I was a communication major. I went to East Tennessee State. I didn’t graduate there, but I got my Communications from Virginia Western Community College. I ended up going back to school after a few years out and got it and landed here. Q: Did it take you a long time to work your way up to where you are now? Anderson: A little bit. I spent, I think, four years working for the station WFIR in Roanoke and I was the morning producer, board operator, pretty much anything they needed, I was doing. I just had the opportunity to get this job. So, it took a little while. Q: What do you see as far as the station’s future? Do you think it will continue as ESPN Radio? Anderson: We’ve only had it for two years and I don’t see it going anywhere. We’ve been very happy with it. I know ESPN has been very happy with the stuff we’ve been able to help them out with, especially when they came here. Pretty much, the network came here for the Miami game. It’s been very positive, so I don’t see it changing in any way. The only thing we may add would be more live games, but we’re not going to switch away from ESPN. It’s getting better. Sales is picking up. Q: What about some of your personal career goals? Is this where you see yourself for a while? Anderson: Right now, this is where I see myself for right now. I am very happy with what’s going on; couldn’t be happier with the way it’s going. Unless, for some reason, something comes down the line for something bigger or I get unhappy here, I’m going to be here. Q: What have you been working on as far as March Madness? Anderson: If you had gotten here 10 minutes earlier, you would’ve seen the entire back room jumping up and down, watching one of the games. We have our March Madness contest, Bracket Challenge. This is our third year doing it. We go to different businesses, and we have our brackets there and people fill them out and people get them back to us and then we’ll go through those on the air. We’re also getting ready to do an EA Sports March Madness contest, April 1, out of Champs, where we’re gonna be playing the game. We’re giving away a TV. This is a good month. Football season, bowl season, Super Bowl - always good months. Q: Do you follow Hokie football? Anderson: My dad took me to a game when I was 6 years old. So, I’ve always been a Tech football fan. Its kinda like a dream to be sitting up there watching the games and coming down and interviewing them, same with the basketball team. Q: So you get to do a lot with the players? Anderson: Yea, we have to do a lot of interviews. Had the chance to interview a lot during the season and offseason. We’ve have Coleman Collins up here. We’ve had Vince Hall, Xavier Adibi, Darryl Tapp - we’ve tried to get him back on. It’s always good. It’s a lot of fun. Q: What is the main challenge of your job? Anderson: Just keeping interest and trying to switch things up on the show so it doesn’t get stale and people don’t get bored with it … Trying to get all the games running, that’s probably one of the biggest challenges, just trying to juggle a few things. A lot of times they’ll blow up right at 3:45 p.m. and I got 15 minutes before I gotta be on the air. People running at me for other reasons - that’s usually one of the things that’s a little bit of a hassle. Q: I was reading about the controversy on-air and how it can be a good thing. Can you explain this? Anderson: If you’ve heard, I am very opinionated about something and nobody’s gonna change my opinion on it. And whether that opinion is what somebody else has, probably not, but you know, that’s why people are going to listen. They may not necessarily agree with you, they’ll call in. It keeps people interested. Q: Do people call in often on your show? Do they state opinion or ask questions? Anderson: It varies. Questions. Especially football season. Football season, there’s a lot of people calling in and it’s a lot of questions. People will say, “Well what do you think of this?” Occasionally someone will call up and maybe disagree with something I had said before and then we’ll just discuss it, go from there, and see if they agree or I agree. Q: Do you ever have trouble answering a question? Anderson: Not often. And if I don’t know it, I’ll look it up real quick and try to figure something out. I can’t really think of any time I’ve really been stumped. And if it is, I’ve got people around me that will, my producers, they’ll try to find the information. Q: Do you have a lot of people working under you? Anderson: It varies. I’ve got four or five that do different things. I’ve got guys who will cut sound, they will put things together for me, they will research some stuff. Now in the summer, it’s pretty much all me doing it because a lot of the interns are gone. But, for the most part, they know what I’m looking for. They’ll ask me what interviews I’m looking for and they’ll go call them up. Q: What are some of the qualities you look for in a new hire? Anderson: Eagerness. Passion. Willingness to do stuff. Pretty much anything. A lot of times it involves maybe doing some grunt stuff. A lot of times I just look for somebody that’s excited to do it, looking forward to working in this field. Q: Do you think it’s important that they be a communication major? Anderson: It helps. I wouldn’t say it’s the most important thing because we’ve had a few people come in here that weren’t communication majors that were able to do some stuff and they ended up getting into the field. Just the passion to do it. If you like sports, like to do it. We’ve had a few people come in, they were just big sports fans, said, “I wanna help out.” Q: So you’ve always been interested in sports? Anderson: Since I was born. My parents have a picture of me at 6 months old watching a bowl game. It’s always been that way. I grew up loving sports. It was just a natural progression to get into it. |
After starting off doing a weekly sports show, Anderson now hosts his own on-air program called The Press Box. March Madness is currently the main focus of his schedule, but during football season, he is a devoted Hokie fan. From Roanoke to the New River Valley, Anderson has been living his dream in the world of sports and communication.